Wild win

Nice to see the Yankees get a pair of longballs and a nice six-inning performance from Carlos Rodon. Rodon sometimes seems like he'd be better off as a reliever, as he usually starts the game very strong then falters in the middle innings. Perhaps it's really as simple as controlling his emotions.

Of course, the Yankees probably don't win the game without Joey Cantillo's wildness, and that Bo Naylor kept trying to block the ball with his glove rather than his body. Yankees will continue to need breaks like this, as the offense is not clicking on all gears and the middle relief (like Tim Hill) is shaky.

Wood vs. Wood #221

Last time 1987 rolled to a 10-1 victory. Will this one be closer?

In 1961 Topps would take a photo of a player hatless in case they changed teams. Such was the case with Bill Short. Despite the pinstripes and Yankee Stadium background, Topps wants you to think Orioles. A hard thrower who struggled with control, Short came up with the Yankees in 1960, spent all of 1961 in the minors, and was a Rule 5 selection by Baltimore. He pitched in just 5 games in 1962, and spent the next three years in the minors before returning to Baltimore for 6 games in 1966. He was then sold to the Red Sox for whom he pitched in 8 more games. The journeyman then pitched in 6 games for the '67 Pirates, 34 games for the '68 Mets, and 4 games for the '69 Reds before retiring. Overall in 73 major league games he went 5-11 with a 4.73 ERA. After his retirement he was a coach in the Pirates organization. He died in 2022.

By 1987 Topps had ditched the hatless photo and instead used airbrushing when a player changed teams. Such was the case with Vern Ruhle, who signed with the Angels in February of 1986, but Topps apparently never got a photo of him with California, instead airbrushing an older photo of Ruhle. Ruhle was a back-of-the rotation starter for the Tigers and Astros in the late '70s and early '80s. His best season by far was 1980, when he went 12-4 with a 2.37 ERA for the Astros. In 1983 he switched to long relieving. He ended his career with stints in Cleveland in 1985 and the Angels in 1986. Overall in 327 games he went 67-88 with a 3.73 ERA. After his playing career he was a pitching coach for several teams. He died in 2007.

1963 Pepsi Tulsa Oilers

I love vintage baseball cars, but I also have a soft stuff for vintage Pepsi merchandise. For some reason I just really like the logo. I've been aware of these for awhile, and was lucky to find a lot of these for a good price. At eight cards (four two-card panels), these represent a third of the set.

These are "door hangers" but the door hanger is not perforated and I hate to unperforate it to stick it on a door, so I am just leaving these intact in my little Pepsi display. As you can see the Oilers were a Cardinals affiliate. Harry Watts never made the majors but Dennis Aust had a brief stint with the Cardinals and got on a Topps card.

Even though the Pepsi logo is blue, it's black on these as it looks like they were just printed in black and red ink. Not sure what uniform Lamar Drummonds is wearing. He didn't make the major leagues but Chuck Taylor did for several years.

Coach Pepper Martin was a legendary member of the Gas House Gang.  Gary Kolb had a brief major league tenure.

Jerry Wild is another guy who didn't make it to the majors. At 7.0 BB/9 in five AAA seasons, I guess he was a little too . . . wild. And finally a batboy! 12-year-old Jon Smith of Tulsa.

Here's what the backs look like. Save your cards and caps and match them to win $24. Hey that's $246 in 2024 dollars. Or maybe a better deal, ten cards get you free admission to an Oilers game.

1953 Bowman Color

I picked up a lot of these for a dollar each. 30 for $30. Pretty hard to get these for a quarter each and they are beautiful cards. I wish they had the names on the front - I'm not going to pretend I can recognize most of these by face alone. Still the photography is really fantastic and I enjoy looking at them. (And if you haven't seen it yet, the Adventures of a Baseball Card Collector blog just did a terrific post with a lot of research revealing that this is the most error-filled set of all time.)

The first one here, Red Schoendienst, is off to the side because it's the only one I had already. It's available for trade, there's tape on the front but it's better than my other one which has paper loss. Also my first Joe Garagiola card, those are hard to come by. Great shot of Yankees star Allie Reynolds too.

Charlie Grimm and Joe Nuxhall's cards both show nice views through the Polo Grounds grandstands to the apartment buildings behind. Grimm's card also notes that he is a noted teller of "German dialect stories".

Johnny Lipon is fielding a ball with a blue stamp on it. The purple sky on Cass Michaels's card is interesting. I don't know if that's a print defect or a cool sunset. I did not realize when I bought this lot that most of the cards were from the somewhat-tougher high numbers. These last three photos are all from that part of the set.

There's Tigers star Johnny Pesky posing at Yankee Stadium. My first Pesky card too. I think he might have played for another team in addition to Detroit. Larry Miggins's card has some of the same pink sky as Cass Michaels.

It wasn't intentional on my part but there's a lot of blue sky with clouds here. Some paper loss even adds to the cloudy effect. From whatever angle though, these close-up glimpses of early '50's ballplayers are really nice to add to my collection.

Nice win

Nice to see a total team effort by the Yankees last night. Not a lot of offense, but enough to squeak by. Even Aaron Judge contributed. Hopefully he has shaken the Arod-itis. The pitching continued to be very good. Gerrit Cole was phenomenal, and the back of the bullpen (Holmes and Weaver) continue to be hot.

However the next round with the longer series will be much tougher. In this series Cole pitched 33% of the Yankees innings; Cole and Holmes combined were one inning short of 50%. This time there will need to be a total team effort, not just relying on a couple of arms to boast a 3-runs-a-game offense. Cleveland's been the most consistent team in the AL all year, and Detroit is the hottest team in baseball, so either way the competition is going to be much stiffer.

(And if they somehow do win their first pennant in 15 years, I sure couldn't handle another Subway Series, so will be rooting hard for the California team in the NLCS!)

Praiseworthy bullpen

As usual, the Yankees got very little out of their lineup outside of Stanton and Soto. Clarke Schmidt was pretty good but ran out of gas in the fifth inning. The big surprise was how well the Yankees bullpen pitched, 4.1 innings of 2-hit shutout ball. Hopefully the Yankees are starting to straighten out what was a big weakness for much of the past few months. These three really did nicely last night.

The real test of this bullpen will come if they have an extra inning game. The Yankees have really struggled in those this year, though the offense deserves a lot of the blame for that.

1974 Topps Deckle Dating: Greg Luzinski

Greg Luzinski.

Back when Shea Stadium was empty behind the outfield fence. Supposedly April 7, 1973.

Luzinski was 0-for-3 with a walk on this day. He was intentionally walked with a runner on second and one out in the top of the ninth of a 2-2 game. The strategy worked as Jon Matlack retired Jose Pagan and Bob Boone, and in the bottom of the ninth the Mets won it on a walkoff single by Willie Mays.

The only other card that might have a photo from the same time is his '75 Topps, which is also a Shea Stadium photo, and he appears to be standing in more or less the same spot. However, the left side of home plate at Shea Stadium seems to have been the most popular place for Topps to take player photos, so it could well have been taken another time.

In other news, President Nixon announced new import fees on gas and oil, the first rugby world cup was held, and astronomers at the OSU Radio Observatory announced the discovery of quasar OH471, the most distant observed object in the universe, which they dubbed "the blaze marking the edge of the universe".

Blogger/TCDB/OBC roundup

Washing away the sting of the Yankees playing exactly as I thought they would, with some of the nice cards that have come in lately.

Vintage trades with other bloggers don't come around very often, but I was able to do one with Cards as I See Them, getting these very nice cards, including Hall of Famer Luke Appling as a Tigers coach. I really like the 1960 Billy Jurges cards. I wish Topps went with that design for the players in that set.

The monthly Diamond Jesters time travel trade is always good for an eclectic mix. No real way to categorize these, other than nice cards to add to my collection!

For years my 1993 Select set was one cards short of completion, missing only the terrific Derek Jeter rookie cards. TCDB's Jbeiermann took care of that in a one-for-one swap for a wrestling relic card.

 

Also TCDB, four minor league cards from nozzlemaster.

On to OBC. Dan Williams managed to fit 49 cards into two PWEs with two forever stamps each. I'm not quite brave enough to try that. Three terrific 1950s cards, very catcher-heavy. Only my second '53 black-and-white. The rest are all 1990 Leaf, mostly commons with one very notable exception, the famous Frank Thomas rookie. That and the Jeter knocked off some pretty big junk-era cards this week.

Ron Hoehne went the oddball route with cake, cereal and pretzels. The Eddie Collins is not a 1972 Kelloggs, but a 1970 Rold Gold (the sets are identical except for the copyright line). I like the Bobby Bonds card where the airbrushed Yankee uniform is missing the pinstripes, and of course airbrushing is pretty much the only way to see a Yankee with a beard.

Cliff Franklin sent this great eight. A Yankee and seven high numbers! Once again a manager card steals the show, that John McNamara photo is great.

Finally, Chris Kodl sent this great six-pack of 1950s cards, highlighted by Dodgers star Don Newcombe.

1981 Topps Leon Roberts

 

The front: Very interesting card here. Like many other cards in this set, this is a pregame photo at Tiger Stadium. What is unusual is that the top right quarter of the background has been blacked out. I wasn't even sure if that was airbrushing or there was an empty spot in the stands, or maybe even a curtain or something. But if you look between Roberts's eye and the bill of his cap, you can see a glimpse of the original background. Makes you wonder what Topps didn't want you to see!

The back: The football tidbit is more interesting that it appears. Roberts tried out in 1977, during his fourth major league season! His plan was to play for the Astros during the week and the Oilers on Sunday. He was actually offered a contract by the Oilers, but the Astros, fearing an injury, upped Roberts's salary to dissuade him from moonlighting in the NFL. The Oilers ended up going with rookie Cliff Parsley, who had a solid season (6th in the AFC in average yards) and a solid six-year career with Houston.

The player: Outfielder Leon Roberts played 11 seasons for six teams. His best season was 1978 with the Mariners, when he hit .301 with 22 HR and 92 RBI. Overall in 900 major league games he hit .267 with 78 HR and 328 RBI.

The man: After his playing career, Roberts was a minor league coach in several organizations. He is now retired.

My collection: I have 20 of his cards, from 1975 to 1985. I would be interested in trading for 1979 Hostess #37.

Game 1

Nice to see the Yankees win a playoff game, at least they won't be swept out. Of course, the Yankees sometimes win Game 1 and then go on to lose the series. Looking back I thought that happened more frequently then it did, but back-to-back in 2018 and 2019 I guess stuck in my mind.

As I thought, neither Cole nor Judge did well. But the bullpen was surprisingly effective, for the most part, and the bottom of the lineup came up the biggest, especially Alex Verdugo, their worst hitter all year. Hopefully those are the starts of trends rather than just a one-game fluke.